


Rewriting History

by Tarlan



Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-28
Updated: 2009-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:03:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Was it amnesia if it had never happened?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rewriting History

**Author's Note:**

> Written for smallfandomfest FEST05 and smallfandomflsh #24. Amnesia  
> Also for: MMOM2009 Challenge - Day 28

Was it amnesia if it had never happened?

It was a question Nick asked himself over and over, especially when he woke in the morning expecting to find Stephen lying beside him but found only an empty bed instead. Parallel universes were not something this paleontologist had ever had to consider before he saw his first anomaly. It belonged to the world of the hard sciences, to cosmology and theoretical physics of time and space, or more likely to the realms of science fiction. He'd read more about temporal physics in the past three years than he had on his own specialism, and yet he had barely scratched the surface because it was all theoretical, with some of what he'd read about already challenged by what he had seen.

Step into the past and risk changing the future; kill a single butterfly in the distant past and the possible repercussions in the future could change the course of history. The Roman Empire might never have fallen, Hitler might have won the war, or any number of new dictators and warlords could have risen to power while others that shaped the world might have never existed.

Yet he'd been into the distant past several times and had noticed few significant changes to the overall politics of the world on his return. The same politicians were still at the forefront of power, and almost the same group of people had been waiting for him each time he stepped back into the present. At least they looked the same, they talked the same, but he didn't know any of them well enough to be certain they truly were the same.

He thought he'd known Stephen.

On the first time-line change Claudia became Jenny, Stephen was torn apart by predators from a dozen time zones, and he'd watched Helen gun down a second clone believing it to be him. All for nothing as it had not altered the terrible future that awaited humanity a scant few years down the road. He'd stepped through the next anomaly into the past and found his own way to alter events. After all, if Helen could do it then so could he, especially if that meant he could save Stephen.

On the second known rewrite of history, Claudia was back but Stephen was still gone, torn to pieces saving them all. When it came to deciding between the two of them, Stephen won because Nick had given over his heart to the other man too many years before to lose him again. This was in spite of Helen's insinuation of an affair between her and Stephen, which Stephen had not denied.

They say third time lucky and Nick wondered if, just maybe, he ought to settle for what he had found in this time-line but that empty bed mocked him with memories of when one side was filled with Stephen's strong body and blue-eyed, sated smile.

During the long years when Helen was missing and presumed dead, this Stephen had never taken their relationship beyond colleagues so Nick had never found comfort in this Stephen's arms. Instead, all Nick was left with was his masturbatory fantasies of what he had loved in another universe, in a time-line that had wiped the vivid memories of hot kisses and the slide of skin against skin clean from Stephen's mind.

With Helen gone, killed by one of her own soldier clones that Connor had reprogrammed, Nick didn't even have to worry about her interference anymore. He only had to focus on his own meddling in time, so the temptation to keep changing the past until he had perfected a future with Stephen was extremely powerful. Eventually, he might even find a universe where Helen hadn't seduced Stephen first, and where Nick was the only man ever to bed him. Yet, what had stopped him from stepping through another anomaly so he could rewrite history for a fourth time, was the occasional intrigued glance from Stephen; interested looks and smiles that slowly heated over days and weeks of working in close proximity.

That was how it had started long before he walked through that first anomaly. Their affair had only ended after Stephen made the ultimate sacrifice to save Nick in both the first and second rewrites of the time-line. Waiting for Stephen in this universe could feel like starting over; sharing their very first kiss and their very first intimate touch anew.

However, his memory supplied him with all the rest; of running the palm of his hand over Stephen's chest, of trailing kisses over his muscular belly, nuzzling the coarser pubic hairs before teasing the already engorged cock with wet, open kisses along the shaft and on the tip. As he sucked Stephen into throes of ecstasy, he recalled bringing himself to the edge by his own hand. Yet, there was more to his memories of Stephen than mere sex. He recalled years of friendship, of long talks well into the night after passion had been sated; moments filled with peals of laughter and tears of pain.

Stephen glanced around the door of Nick's laboratory in the ARC, a smile playing about his lips and his eyes filled with excitement.

"We've got another anomaly."

Nick picked up his equipment and fell into step beside Stephen as they made their way towards the cars, shoulders no longer brushing with every step.

In two other time-lines there existed a Nick Cutter who was grieving the loss of his lover, Stephen Hart. Although Stephen was alive in this time-line, Nick hadn't regained all that he had lost by Helen's initial meddling. As they climbed into the car, his eyes met Stephen's and within the vibrant blue he saw his own reflection, and beyond that he saw the bitter ghost of his own warm memories.

Perhaps it couldn't be called amnesia when there was never any memory for Stephen to lose, and Nick wanted Stephen to remember.

As he stepped through the anomaly into the distant past, Nick took a deep breath. Maybe this time he would have his Stephen back, with no predators to tear his lover to pieces and rip out Nick's heart in the process.

Slowly, he reached out for a butterfly.

END


End file.
